Creativity Coaching - notes from 5/27/16 conversation

Values:

• List the values I wish I had (and those are probably my values)

Art:

• oil pastels OVER watercolor backgrounds
• series of more painting to music - outside, big (holst, mussorsky)
• Read Kandinsky book
• Establish an art-making time as a habit (every morning?)
• Links to images:
• https://www.tarabrach.com/absolute-cooperation-with-the-inevitable/
• https://www.tarabrach.com/ten-minute-basic-guided-meditation-practice/

Organization:

• Check out Evernote
• Organize Blog:
• creativity coaching (private)
• Art and comments
• Momkin (private)
• My to do list (private)
• Intentional living community

Intentional Living Community with creative/arts focus:

• aging in place/shared services & care/community
• variety of ages
• studio space for classes, individual work
• affordable/funding
• research Troy Gardens co-housing, Madison
• Links:
• http://plancharlotte.org/story/cohousing-podcast-robert-boyer-uncc
• http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/11/communal-living-projects-moving-from-hippie-to-mainstream
• http://www.shareable.net/blog/one-family%E2%80%99s-move-from-cohousing-to-a-smaller-tighter-community
• http://www.nextavenue.org/pros-cons-living-with-friends-older-age/?utm_content=buffer8a01d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
• https://www.facebook.com/cohousingUS/?fref=nf
• http://www.13newsnow.com/news/local/85-year-old-navy-vet-takes-up-tap-dancing/119051003
• http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/04/472186457/just-turned-40-an-architect-says-its-time-to-design-for-aging?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160405
• http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/the-elderly-dancers-bringing-1-800-years-of-life-to-the-stage-1-3905979?platform=hootsuite
• http://isthmus.com/arts/emphasis/east-madison-the-bodgery-makerspace/

Helen

• invite to Chicago
• art workshops/travel
• fb site to share and comment on art: monitize?

LPBootcamp - Wk 2

Life Purpose Bootcamp Week 2
Miscellaneous quotes and thoughts:
"Your goal, if you would like to live authentically and in alignment with your life purposes, is to make sufficient meaning and to have that meaning arise from and support your values." "Value-base meaning making"
"Obstacle one - turning a blind eye on value: it is easy to make a large investment in something that serves us..." - is ballroom something that only serves me? How does it fit in with my values? How does it serve anyone else?

What are my values:
personal growth/learning/curiosity
productivity/tangible results/coming to completion
solving problems - seeing the connection between ideas and developing an action plan 


authentic connection
harmony

Question One:
What is the right mix of meaning opportunities for me? Which must appear? Which might appear only occasionally, which satisfy which VALUE?

My menu of meaning opportunities:

1. move/walk/dance/tai chi - I'm not sure what value these satisfy, but I know they're important to me
2. CURIOSITY/LEARNING: read/think/discuss/write
3. AUTHENTIC CONNECTION: Interact in a helpful way,  be kind, make eye contact, smile
4. PRODUCTIVITY: Single-task (as opposed to multi-task) - pay attention, be in the moment
5. AUTHENTIC CONNECTION: Share a gift with someone
6. CURIOSITY/LEARNING: Learn something new
7. AUTHENTIC CONNECTION: have a meaningful conversation/listen
8. PERSONAL GROWTH: Practice a skill to improve 
9. TANGIBLE RESULTS/ COMING TO CLOSURE: dance, paint
10. HARMONY: View nature - clouds, trees, water, be in nature

• Be in nature
• Look at art
• Listen to music
• Have physical contact with someone
•  meditate/stare out window
• Tai Chi

Question Two:
How do I make this mix fit into my real life? 
On the whole, I have a good mix of these meaning opportunities pretty much every day. The thing I find frustrating is when I don't have something meaningful to fill my "down" time at work. Working on these exercises and creativity coaching has done a really good job of filling that void for the past week!

While thinking about this assignment, I happened to get an email regarding the 16 personality types, which is something that always fascinates me. I'm an INFJ, and these are some characteristics of that personality type that describe me really well :

"INFJs would not take “just a job.” They prefer a cause, something they can believe in and into which they can channel their incredibly serious and earnest energy.
They often take charity roles or roles that require standing up for the downtrodden or oppressed.
Such roles satiate their need for meaning and provide a platform for their values. INFJs think deeply and intensely about their actions.
Everything needs to fit into their values ecosystem so that work, life, beliefs, and people are all connected to the whole.
Once they buy in, they are incredibly hard workers who will assume roles and responsibilities, even in areas others might avoid, as they are true crusaders for whom the cause can be everything.
INFJs will need an outlet for their imaginative and innovative side. Whatever it is the organization does—product or service—must be important to them so they can immerse themselves in it.

Energizers

• Ability to achieve closure on projects
• People who communicate directly and honestly
• An organized and predictable work environment
• Clarity in role definition and limits of responsibilities
• Full autonomy
• A flexible schedule with control over work and results

Stressors

• Detail-focused work
• Ignorant, irrational, or illogical people
• Too much extroverting
• A disorganized workspace
• Lack of follow-through from coworkers"

Exercise Three:
Put the plan into action for the rest of the week, and write about it.
This plan doesn't really vary from my usual schedule. This particular week will be different because I'll be traveling for most of it, but I'll be mindful of looking for "meaning opportunities".

Response to Helen’s comments on paintings and other random thoughts

Helen, receiving your comments is such a gift! I feel like a kid on Christmas morning when I see them. Your comments are extremely insightful and helpful. It’s very exciting to see my work through your eyes – your comments help me see things that I hadn’t noticed. And I love how you’re able to articulate different things – it helps me to grow my artistic vocabulary and vision. I’ll be out of town until next Wednesday (driving to Ithaca NY for my youngest son’s graduation), so it will take me some time to digest everything and comment back, but I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your thoughtful and encouraging comments.

I’m loving this creativity coaching process with you. It’s extremely useful to have a forum to collect my ideas and get feedback. And using the blog is great – I’m going to ask my son to help me get the blog organized so that it’s not just a random bunch of posts.

One of the things I’ve noticed during this process is that my creative life comes in waves – I have times (like now) where ideas are flowing in like crazy. It’s very energizing, but can end up making me feel pretty scattered unless I have a way of recording the ideas and getting feedback on them. Your feedback is incredibly helpful, and the blog is a great way of recording the ideas. Eventually, I’ll reach a point where I want to make progress on some specific idea(s). I’m very organized and logical, so coming up with an action plan is something I really enjoy. But then comes the sticking point – there’s usually a part of the action plan that involves getting other people involved in some way – either as potential partners or clients or whatever, and then typically I get stuck and can’t get over that hump. Then I go through a slump, get frustrated and depressed, my energy is at low ebb……and then, at some point, the process starts over again. I’ve learned that I need to take advantage of the times when my energy is high to get started on an action plan. Once I get a set of tasks to work on, I’m disciplined about accomplishing those tasks, until I reach a critical task that I don’t know how to accomplish on my own. And that’s part of where I need my “tribe” – I have many great friends, and many of them are interested enough to listen to my various ideas, but most of them have a much more conventional mindset that mine, and don’t really “get” what I’m describing.

I think you are a person who will understand what I’m talking about, so I’d like to spend some discussing a particular concept during our next phone call, and developing ideas for how to get that concept from idea to something more tangible.

Life Purpose Bootcamp Wk1 Assignment

May 17, 2016

At Helen's suggestion, she and I are reading Eric Maisel's book Life Purpose Bootcamp, and doing the weekly exercises.

Week one
Assignment one: Create a menu of meaning opportunities - activities or way of being that provoke the psychological experience of meaning.

My menu of meaning opportunities:

• paint
• move/walk
• read/think/discuss/write
• meditate/stare out window
• Tai Chi
• Interact in a helpful way
• Be kind, make eye contact, smile
• Lovingly prepare food
• Single-task (as opposed to multi-task)
• Loving clean house
• Share a gift with someone
• Learn something new
• have a meaningful conversation/listen
• Be in the moment
• Practice a skill to improve
• View nature - clouds, trees, water
• Be in nature
• Look at art
• Listen to music
• Have physical contact with someone

Assignment two: Think through creating a day that includes items from my menu of  meaning opportunities, as well as things I need to do, and want to do. Draw up different schedules.

A possible work day schedule with meaning opportunities: 

• 6:30 - get up, feed and walk dog
• be in nature
• 7:00 - Tai Chi, watch sky, move, read, and/or meditate
• 7:45 - Get dressed, ready for work 
• 8:15 - Drive to work
• Listen to music and sing
• 8:45 - (at work) - prepare and eat breakfast - look out window 
• 9-12 work
• take breaks to stare out window
• 12-1, lunch: walk outside if weather permits, if not, eat while looking out window and read
• 1-4 work
•  take breaks to stare out window
• If not busy, read, write or learn something new
• 5 - Drive home
• listen to NPR or music
• 5:45 - Prepare food lovingly, eat mindfully
• 6:30 - walk dog/be in nature
• 8:00 pm - Dance class

 Assignment three:  Live one of my "meaning opportunity" days. I did this on Monday May 16.

Review of Week one:
How was the total experience, what transpired, and what did I learn?
I totally enjoyed the process of planning the experience, but the experience itself was underwhelming in feeling meaningful. Things that I learned were: calling something meaningful doesn't necessarily make the doing of it feel meaningful; and that I enjoy the planning and thinking process more than the actual doing (this is true for many things that I do).
How hard or easy was it to create the menu of meaning opportunity? Was I surprised by any of the items on the list?
It was fairly easy to come up with a list of activities that I thought would create meaning activity - the thing that surprised me was that most of the items on the list are already a consistent part of my life, but by framing them as "meaning opportunities" it gave those activities a special emphasis, and made them, well... meaningful!
How hard or easy was it to create the day with a mix of regular activities and meaning activities?
It was quite easy - this is actually my usual workday schedule, but but framing some of the activities as meaningful, it made me realize that I'm not wasting my life away!
How hard/easy was it to live that day?
It was both easy to live that day (because that's already my typical schedule), and hard, because just calling an activity meaningful didn't make it feel any more meaningful than it had on all the zillions of previous days. So, that made me question whether I should have different items on my menu of meaning opportunities.

Was there anything else about this process that intrigued me? 
I wondered if I really know what constitutes a meaning opportunity for me.